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Xi'an Coy Manh (Earth-616)
; formerly (founding member); mentor of and ; | Relatives = General Nguyen Ngoc Coy (uncle, deceased); Tran Coy Manh (brother, deceased); Leong Coy Manh (brother); Nga Coy Manh (sister); | Universe = Earth-616 | BaseOfOperations = Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, Salem Center, Westchester County, New York; formerly Utopia, San Francisco Bay, California; Graymalkin Industries, Marin Highlands, San Francisco, California; Xavier Institute, Salem Center, Westchester County, New York; Vietnam; Madripoor; Cairo, Egypt; Massachusetts Academy, Snow Valley, Massachusetts | Gender = Female | Height = 5'4" | Weight = 119 lbs | Eyes = Brown | Hair = Black | UnusualFeatures = Missing left leg (she now has to use a prosthetic) | Citizenship = Vietnamese | MaritalStatus = Single | Occupation = Teacher, formerly adventurer, student | Education = | Origin = Mutant | PlaceOfBirth = Central highlands of Vietnam | Creators = Chris Claremont; Frank Miller | First = Marvel Team-Up #100 | HistoryText = Early Years Xi'an Coy Manh was the daughter of a colonel in the Vietnamese army. Xi'an and her twin brother, Tran Coy Manh, were mutants with the power to take mental possession of the minds of others. While still a child, Xi'an saw an enemy soldier threaten Tran. Not realizing she had a superhuman power, Xi'an nevertheless, acting impulsively, took possession of the soldier's mind and stopped him from killing Tran. Tran then successfully attempted the same feat and forced the soldier to kill himself. While Tran took great delight in this use of his new-found power, Xi'an was frightened of her power. Xi'an kept their powers secret, but Tran told their uncle, Nguyen Ngoc Coy, a general in the Vietnamese army. General Coy later arranged for Xi'an's family to leave Vietnam, which was now entirely under a Communist government, but only Tran was sent abroad. Eventually, the rest of the family left Vietnam on a small, crowded boat. Xi'an's father was murdered by attacking pirates, who assaulted the women; her mother died the day the survivors were rescued, by the United States Navy. Xi'an, her younger brother, Leong Coy Manh, and her younger sister, Nga Coy Manh, were sent to the United States to be reunited with her Uncle Nguyen and Tran. General Coy had become a powerful and prosperous criminal in the United States (although he was publicly known as a businessman), and Tran was using his powers in his uncle's employ. When Coy asked Xi'an to use her powers in his service, she refused. Xi'an sought help from a Catholic priest, Father Michael Bowen, whom she had known in Vietnam. With Father Bowen's aid, Xi'an secured employment and an apartment and enrolled her younger siblings in school. At that time, General Coy kidnapped Leong and Nga, in an effort to blackmail Xi'an into working for him. Desperate, Xi'an located Spider-Man, whom she believed to be a criminal from accounts in the New York Daily Bugle, and took possession of his mind, so she could use his powers to rescue the children. While possessed by Xi'an, Spider-Man fought three members of the Fantastic Four, who were present at a party Coy was hosting, unaware that he was a criminal. Xi'an was forced to release Spider-Man's mind without having freed the children, but Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four located Xi'an and Bowen, learned her story, and agreed to help her. Tran used his powers to take control of the Fantastic Four and have them attack Spider-Man. To save Spider-Man, whom she now knew was no criminal, Xi'an was forced to kill her brother, by absorbing his life essence into herself. Xi'an was then reunited with Leong and Nga. New Mutants Shortly thereafter, Xi'an, who now called herself Karma when using her powers, was recommended by Reed Richards and accepted the invitation of Professor Charles Xavier to enroll in his school, in order to learn to use her mutant powers better. Thus, she became the first leader of the new team of young superhuman mutants he was training, the New Mutants. Although the team was originally created because the Professor was possessed by the Brood Queen egg inside of him for future embryos, they stayed together. Needing to support her two siblings, Professor Xavier also assigned her the position of secretary at the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. In the School for Gifted Youngsters, the New Mutants were tutored, by Professor X, and trained in the use of their powers, in the Danger Room. While at the mall in Salem Center, the team was attacked by Sentinels, later, they battled the powers of the Brood Queen inside of Prof. Xavier, then Dani Moonstar (Mirage) was kidnapped by Silver Samurai and Viper, at which time Xi'an agreed to one year’s service to her uncle in exchange for their whereabouts and disappeared in an explosion. Possessed by the Shadow King Karma was thought to be missing or dead from New Mutant for a brief period, but had fallen under the control of the Shadow King. Shadow King possessed Shan’s body and used his and Karma’s own powers to carve a criminal empire. Shadow King indulged his excessive appetites, causing Karma to become incredibly obese. After taking control of the Gladiators, Empath turned Sunspot and Magma over to Shan, where they were forced to battle for entertainment. After learning that their former teammate was in-fact alive, the New Mutants decided to rescue her. After tracking Karma to Madripoor, then Cairo, the New Mutants were joined by Storm and all of them were possessed by Karma, save Mirage, Warlock, and Magik. After Mirage was possessed, Magik and Warlock released Karma of the Shadow King and Karma fought a psychic battle, which she won, forcing the Shadow King to flee back to the Astral Plane. Later, Amora the Enchantress kidnapped the New Mutants to Asgard. While attempting to escape, Magik used her teleportation discs and the Enchantress' magics affected the destination and the New Mutants were separated through time and space. Karma found herself stranded in the desert months in the past, where she encountered a young girl, possibly the Norn Queen Karnilla, who she protected. Crossing the unforgiving desert for months, Karma managed to lose the weight she had gained, under the influence of the Shadow King, and became quite formidable in the use of her power. After the New Mutants defeated Amora, the X-Men arrived to assist them in rescuing Storm. Following Magneto After their adventure in Asgard, the New Mutants found themselves under the guidance of a new teacher, Magneto, and Xi'an returned to her position as school secretary. After Magik was "completed" by the virtually omnipotent Beyonder, she pleaded with the others to concede, but changed her mind after seeing that her best-friend, Kitty Pryde, was stuck with her responsibilities of Limbo. The Beyonder returned and battled the New Mutants to the death, killing all of them and going a step further by obliterating them from existence. The Beyonder recreated the New Mutants to test a machine and later used them as henchmen against the heroes attempting to stop him, as they had no memories of the New Mutants. After Beyonder's defeat, Phoenix set everything back. In being recreated, the New Mutants, somehow, lost much of the proficiency in using their superhuman powers that they had learned at Prof. Xavier's school and seemed detached. Under the psychic influence of the Hellion, Empath, Magneto closed the school and sent the New Mutants to study with the Hellions' teacher, the White Queen, Emma Frost. When Magneto realized he was tricked into transferring the New Mutants, he attempted to confront Emma and was attacked, by the Avengers. After rescuing Magneto from the Avengers, he and Emma worked together to cure the children of the trauma at the hands of the Beyonder and they returned to Prof. Xavier's mansion. After the return of Sunspot, the New Mutants decided to even the score with Empath, seeing as how Magneto would not, and terrorized him until Cypher stated that revenge would make them no better than Empath. The team went-on to defeat Legion on Muir Island. Later, while watching the Wildways, Leong and Nga were captured by Spiral and Mojo, matured into the adults, Template, and mentally controlled by Psylocke into joining a new show, the Bratpack. After a brief battle with the New Mutants, Psylocke was freed from her mind control and freed the others as well. The New Mutants, later, battled the X-Men after they had been turned to the X-Babies, by Mojo, until they were broken of their brainwashing and defeated the spineless one, Mojo. During this mission and after, the New Mutants would rotate between their graduation uniforms and their standard New Mutants training uniforms. During the massacre of the Morlocks by the Marauders, the New Mutants were charged with aiding the wounded. Later, Shan asked Illyana Rasputin to teleport her to check on her younger brother and sister, only to discover they disappeared. A bomb rigged to their apartment’s light switch destroyed all possible clues to their whereabouts. After surviving the explosion, the New Mutants joined them and Warlock's father, Magus, attacked. To escape the Magus, Illyana quickly teleported the New Mutants to Limbo. Shortly after, Magus also appeared on Limbo and Illyana sent the New Mutants to Scotland's past where they aided Scottish King, Robert the Bruce. While attempting to go back to Limbo, Illyana, again, accidentally separated the New Mutants through time and space. Karma, Magma, Wolfsbane, and Sunspot were sent to a future where the Sentinels had taken over and killed all mutants and superhumans. They were aided by adult versions of Cannonball and Mirage and all remaining mutants were sent, by Lila Cheney, to her Dyson Sphere. After the adult Cannonball and Mirage abandoned them, they were about to be destroyed, by Sentinels, until Illyana returned with Professor Xavier, Lilandra Neramani, and Binary and took them back to the planet that the Professor was on with the Starjammers. When Merging their forms once more, Cypher tapped into Warlock’s own DNA in order to learn how to "re-code" it. While the rest of the New Mutants distracted Magus, Cypher and Warlock re-wrote the Magus' DNA, effectively reducing him to infancy. In order to swiftly return home, Professor Xavier used Xi'an to possess Illyana twice, a fact that neither of the children were comfortable with. Upon returning home, the New Mutants were forced to chase Warlock and Impossible Man, who were having a contest to see who the better sentient lifeform was through shape changing and teleporting around the world. Upon returning to the School for Gifted Youngsters, the New Mutants were, all, grounded by Magneto and not allowed to leave the grounds. After a soccer game became too physical, Sunspot ended-up giving Cannonball a concussion and, after the rest of the New Mutants began to chastise him, Sunspot ran away, feeling he was a danger to his team. Warlock left after Sunspot and this left all of the team feeling deeply guilty and worried about Warlock and Sunspot's whereabouts. To calm them down, Magneto dressed them elegantly and they all attended a Hellfire Club event, where Xi'an possessed Tessa to desperately search for her siblings in the Hellfire Club's database. Xi'an found no information, as Magneto had told her previously. After being caught, by Sebastian Shaw, the Black King, Xi'an declined helping the New Mutants in their contest against the Hellions, to find who sold a forged statue of Selene to a member of the Hellfire Club before sunrise, stating that she had too many things on her mind. While the team was gone, Xi'an left a letter for Dani, co-leader of the New Mutants, stating that she was leaving the team to work for her uncle and search for her siblings. Searching for Siblings Karma left the New Mutants and subsequently embarked on a long search for Leong and Nga. For a time she served General Coy in Madripoor, in the hope that he could locate her brother and sister. While working for her Uncle, Xi'an encountered Patch, the X-Man Wolverine in disguise. Patch was attempting to stop General Coy from over-throwing the current crimelord of Madripoor, Tyger Tiger, and Xi'an even assisted him, by taking control of Roughbouse and Bloodsport for Patch and Tyger to escape a beating. While attempting to rescue Lindsay McCabe, Tyger Tiger and Jessica Drew, Xi'an ran into Patch again and assisted in the down-fall of her uncle's empire. Patch had General Coy at his mercy, until Prince Baran intervened and, thanks to Lindsay, considered them all honored guests of his. The Prince offered that Tyger and General Coy worked together, to stop a power vacuum and warzone in Madripoor and Patch convinced Tyger to accept. Next, Patch began his quest to save Karma from her uncle's service, but was sidetracked when he learned that disrupting General Coy's drug activities planted a target on the General's head and Xi'an needed him to help her find her missing brother and sister. Xi'an accompanied Patch to the airport to witness the arrival of Joe Fixit, who Patch smelled right away and recognized as the Hulk. For a time Leong and Nga were the prisoners of Shinobi Shaw, who made them the subjects of genetic experiments. He then turned them over to Karma's longtime foe, the terrorist known as the Viper, and the extra-dimensional being Spiral. Karma and the X-Man Beast eventually joined forces to rescue the two children, but Beast was unable to undo Spiral's genetic tinkering. Karma later found a doctor who was able to undo the damage her siblings had suffered. Adulthood Karma dyed her hair pink had some body piercing done. She met most of her former New Mutant teammates who were now members of X-Force at the Burning Man festival. She was accompanied by two lesbian friends. While studying and working at Chicago University as a librarian, Xi'an crossed paths with Shadowcat and helped her fight the Purity and Sentinel menaces. Shortly after Karma's graduation, Moonstar arrived in an attempt to recruit David Alleyne for the Xavier Institute. Xi'an introduced the two, and headed back to the relative safety of the Institute along with her siblings. It was also at around this time that Karma confirmed her lesbianism to Dani and confessed to an reciprocated attraction to Kitty Pryde. At the school, Karma briefly reunited with the original New Mutants to battle Donald Pierce Xi'an had lots of responsibility at the Institute. She was the school's librarian, French teacher, and adviser for students too young to be assigned to a squad. With Northstar believed dead and Wolfsbane leaving the Institute after her affair with a student was exposed, Karma was also supervising their squads (Alpha Squadron and The Paragons). Karma joined the rest of the X-men in San Francisco at the new headquarters. She was at a weak state and was unable to gain proper control over her powers. New Mutants X-Men Squad Magik later returned, stating that she was from shortly in the future and that the world and New Mutants would die without her intervention. Cyclops, then, allowed Cannonball to reorganize the original New Mutants squad. Their first mission was to subdue a recently returned Legion. While attempting to save a young girl that was absorbed into Legion's mind, Xi'an was also absorbed into Legion's mind and battled to protect the young girl, Marci, from all of David's personalities, until Magik arrived and, after Xi'an used her Soulsword and killed one of the personalities, saved Xi'an. After battling their resurrected teammate, Doug Ramsey, and the Hellions, Doug was freed from Eli Bard's control by Warlock wielding Magik's Soulsword and they rejoined their former teammates. After the return of the mutant messiah, Hope Summers, and Cable to the mainstream timeline, Bastion and his members of the Human Council attacked her tirelessly. Cyclops ordered the New Mutants to attack one of Cameron Hodge's Right facilities, where Hodge attacked her and almost killed her, before Warlock killed him. She was badly injured, and her left leg had to later be amputated. After Bastion's forces were prevented from carrying out the mutant genocide that he planned, Madison Jefferies used his mutant abilities to create a new bionic leg for Xi'an. After the attack from Bastion, the team took a vacation and Illyana sensed that Pixie had been captured. Illyana sent Warlock to warn the X-Men and the rest of the team battled the Inferno Babies. After being beaten, they were about to be taken to Limbo, until Xi'an showed Face what Project Purgatory had done to him and he freed Illyana and Xi'an. The two of them, with Pixie, returned to Utopia, where Legion was being held and Illyana plunged her Soulsword into Xi'an's chest and she ended-up in Legion's mind. There, Shan released the true David Haller personality and it was revealed that Illyana brought Legion back into the mainstream reality to use against the Elder Gods that the General Ulysses and Project Purgatory were planning to unleash. Fear Itself Shan left the New Mutants to take care of Face, and when Kuurt attacked San Francisco, they were among those who tried to stop him, but even Face's devastating powers were ineffective. | Powers = Xi'an is a mutant. Mind Possession: The psionic ability project a psionic energy surge that overwhelms her victims' consciousness while placing her mind in command, allowing her to alter their perceptions and memories, command entranced opponents to divulge information, or operate their bodies as if they were an extension of her own. She can control her subject's actions and experience what the subject's senses perceive. During the possession her subject's higher brain functions revert to diminished levels, similar to their state in a dreamless sleep, and the subject is left with no memory of the actual possession. Although Karma can possess multiple subjects simultaneously, her control over her subjects is fragmented as she shifts her attention from one to another. Possibly she will overcome this handicap as her experience in using her powers grows. When Karma first takes possession of someone, she can only move her subject's body awkwardly until she acclimates herself to her new host. *''Sensory Link: Karma may establish a partial possession and gain the feeling’s and sensations of the target. '''Psionic Deflector Shield': Generates a psionic deflector shield that disrupts incoming psi-signatures, protecting her from all manner of psychic assault. | Abilities = | Strength = Karma possesses the normal human strength of a woman of her age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise. | Weaknesses = Subordinate Personality: If she remains in possession of a host for too long she will begin to think and act as her host would, and eventually her own personality would become subordinate to one identical to the host's. | Equipment = | Transportation = Magik, X-Men Blackbird, Warlock | Weapons = | Notes = *Post - Messiah Complex Karma was believed to be part of the new incarnation of The Brotherhood along with the other Original New Mutants, but this has not been confirmed. | Trivia = * Karma is a known lesbian. Although her sexual preference had been mentioned before, she was never explicitly shown with another woman until . | Links = * Marvel Directory * UncannyXmen.net, Spotlight feature on Karma * Gay League Profile }} Category:Post-M-Day Mutants (The 198) Category:Gay Characters Category:Telepathic Immunity Category:Telepaths Category:Utopians Category:One Leg Category:Possession Category:Cyborgs Category:Xavier Institute Student